How Employee Advocacy helps you attract and recruit top talent

Did you know that the people already employed at your workplace can prove to be the best instrument to streamline your hiring needs?

No marketing effort can be as successful as a happy employee bearing the flag for your company. Through them, you can reach the best talent available in the market which you possibly couldn’t even reach if not for your employees.

A great workplace is the first step to ensuring employee advocacy. But you can take further measures as well to ensure that your employees have the right tools to help the company’s recruitment efforts.

Social media is one such platform where you can use the help of your most engaged employees to advocate for your company and capture the attention of top candidates on social media.

Here are a few tips that will show you how you can use employee advocacy to attract and recruit top talent:

Get your employees to share workplace culture online

If you have cultivated a workplace culture that you aemployee referralre proud of and would want future potential employees to be aware of, get your existing employees to help get the word out there. It is the most authentic representation you can ask for.

It is a good idea to have a proper social media policy in place before you start asking your employees to share office-related content on their personal social media accounts.

Do not push employees who are not comfortable pushing the official agenda through their personal accounts.

However, if you create a wonderful work culture and only encourage the posting of honest and authentic content, most employees will be more than happy to do their part.

Involve your employees in the recruitment process

The easiest way to involve your employees in the recruitment process is by getting them to share your job listings through their personal profiles on social media. This ensures a more diverse pool of candidates getting access to this information. You need to make your employees feel involved in the hiring process by updating them with the necessary details of the job profile and the requirements of potential candidates. This way they can share the required information with potential applicants and clarify basic queries.

Make the process easier for your employees so that it takes the least amount from their personal time. That coupled with happy employees already posting about how amazing it is to work at your workplace is sure to draw attention.

Create a strong employee referral program

Employees hired through referral programs have shown to generate higher quality leads. These leads if pursued and hired have proven to have higher engagement levels and retention rates. 

Statistics have shown that for every 7 referrals your employees bring you, you will end up hiring at least one of them which is unlike the general recruitment process where you have to trudge through at least 100 applicants to find one suitable hire.

For your referral program to hold any substance, you need to first begin at the most basic step that is your workplace. If you create a workplace that is stress-free and enjoyable to work in, your employees will naturally want to share the space with their social circle.

Any company with good internal communication that rewards hard work and has the opportunity for growth will attract applicants like moths to light. If you have yet to improve on these basic factors then starting an employee referral program is not a good idea.

If you believe that you have mastered the art of employee engagement and your employees are happy working for you, start developing a clear message for the referral program. You need to ensure that your employee is not sending out incorrect or misguided information.

Make sure that everyone knows the official agenda by developing an outline for your employee referral program wherein you can explain what information you need them to pass on.

These could range from the platform you want them to use to attract applicants and the type of applicants you want them to target, etc.

Adopt an easy and user-friendly application process to garner maximum engagement.

Above all, give credit where it is due! If an employee helps you find a great new hire, acknowledge and reward them. This will even encourage other employees to find great talent for your company.

You can also consider establishing a feedback system to improve the quality of referrals. Let your employees know what kind of candidates you are looking for by providing astute feedback.

Identify your biggest advocates and work with them

There must already be people in your company creating a little buzz about your company in their social circles. Identify these people and understand their reasons for being an organic advocate.

Figure out easier and more effective ways for them to engage potential candidates. However, do not just focus on the people bringing you referrals.

Pay close attention to the people who hype up your workplace’s culture on social media as a positive work environment because it is a great way to attract applicants. Take ideas from both these groups to maximize your recruitment efforts and train other employees on the issue as well.

Train your employees on how to effectively use social media

Have you wondered why not many employees are sharing moments from their workplace however fun or productive they are? A fairly common reason is that they may think that they are not allowed to make official stuff public.

More people could also be stumped on what are the things that are okay to share. This problem could be taken care of by simply training your employees on the use of social media. Through this, you could show them sample posts promoting your brand.

Also, pay close attention to the things that you want them to refrain from posting online. If you are serious about streamlining your recruitment efforts through your employees then consider providing channel-specific workshops as well.

For example, a LinkedIn profile building workshop will do wonders for your employees to understand how to present and advocate for your company online to gather maximum engagement from potential candidates.

Conclusion

Create a more holistic recruitment approach by marrying talent acquisition efforts to employee advocacy. There is no better way to ensure quality hires that won’t jump ship for the next best opportunity if they were hired through a referral from an existing employee.

So, enhance the quality of your talent pool today by starting employee referral programs and encouraging overall employee advocacy.

Author’s Bio:

Aditya Sharma

An entrepreneur and a resume tactician, Aditya lives and breathes Hiration — an AI-powered online resume builder and platform to help professionals seeking to land their dream job find their way in today’s highly treacherous job market.